When candidate Donald Trump entered the race in June of 2015 many people recognized early on the Trump-Base would be unlike anything ever seen before….

Now, with the election closing in from the horizon, the scope of the “Trump coalition” is quickly coming into focus… and the scale is stunning. Millions of former self-identified democrats supporting Trump – they’re called Trumpocrats (Watch):

Yahoo – Like others who visited a certain recycling factory on Thursday in rustic York County, Pennsylvania, Kelly Neely has undergone a political evolution. Just four years ago she voted for a man who looks and sounds nothing like the braggadocio Donald J. Trump. “I voted for Obama,” she says. “I felt like he deserved a second term for getting bin Laden.”

But now, with her blonde locks peeking through her “Make America Great Again” cap and her 2-year-old daughter at her side, Neely is talking about jobs — or rather, the lack of them in what remains a key swing state in this election.

When Neely is asked if some of Trump’s comments have been racist, as certain critics have alleged, she says the accusation makes her want to cry. Then she does. “Because it’s not true,” she chokes out through sobs. “Just because we want something better for our children, it doesn’t mean we’re racist.”

That Trump, a first-time political candidate and septuagenarian, is on the doorstep of the White House is a political surprise of massive proportions and multiple dimensions. But what’s rarely discussed is how his rise correlates with an equally unexpected trend: Millions of people who voted for Obama in 2008 and again in 2012 are seriously thinking about voting for the Donald this time around.

Indeed, some surveys and polls have found that between 10 and 15 percent of Trump’s support — or an estimated 4.6 million to 9.8 million voters — has been coming from those who backed Obama in the previous election. In many states this election cycle, voters have changed their party registration from unaffiliated or Democrat to Republican, and the numbers buoy Trump’s hopes in important states such as Colorado (where 35,000 switched), Iowa (65,000), Pennsylvania (140,000) and Ohio (more than 1 million).

They’ve organized too, under names such as “Democrats for Trump,” or, as one political action committee more cheekily christened itself, “Trumpocrats.” (more)